2. Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to create and run Charliecloud images, using both examples included with the source code as well as new ones you create from scratch.

This tutorial assumes that: (a) Charliecloud is in your path, including Charliecloud’s fully unprivileged image builder ch-image and (b) the Charliecloud source code is available at /usr/local/src/charliecloud. Optionally, (c) ch-run is linked with SquashFUSE to provide internal SquashFS image mounting. (If you wish to use Docker to build images, see the FAQ.)

Note

Shell sessions throughout this documentation will use the prompt $ to indicate commands executed natively on the host and > for commands executed in a container.

2.1. 90 seconds to Charliecloud

This section is for the impatient. It shows you how to quickly build and run a “hello world” Charliecloud container. If you like what you see, then proceed with the rest of the tutorial to understand what is happening and how to use Charliecloud for your own applications.

The preferred workflow uses our internal SquashFS mounting code. Your sysadmin should be able to tell you if this is linked in.

$ cd /usr/local/share/doc/charliecloud/examples/hello
$ ch-image build --force .
inferred image name: hello
[...]
grown in 4 instructions: hello
$ ch-convert hello /var/tmp/hello.sqfs
input:   ch-image  hello
output:  squash    /var/tmp/hello.sqfs
packing ...
Parallel mksquashfs: Using 8 processors
Creating 4.0 filesystem on /var/tmp/hello.sqfs, block size 65536.
[=============================================|] 10411/10411 100%
[...]
done
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- echo "I'm in a container"
I'm in a container

If not, you can create image in plain directory format instead:

$ cd /usr/local/share/doc/charliecloud/examples/hello
$ ch-image build --force .
inferred image name: hello
[...]
grown in 4 instructions: hello
$ ch-convert hello /var/tmp/hello
input:   ch-image  hello
output:  dir       /var/tmp/hello
exporting ...
done
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello -- echo "I'm in a container"
I'm in a container

2.2. Getting help

All the executables have decent help and can tell you what version of Charliecloud you have (if not, please report a bug). For example:

$ ch-run --help
Usage: ch-run [OPTION...] NEWROOT CMD [ARG...]

Run a command in a Charliecloud container.
[...]
$ ch-run --version
0.26

A description of all commands is also collected later in this documentation; see Charliecloud command reference. In addition, each executable has a man page.

2.3. Your first user-defined software stack

In this section, we will create and run a simple “hello, world” image. This uses the hello example in the Charliecloud source code. Start with:

$ cd examples/hello

2.3.1. Defining your UDSS

You must first write a Dockerfile that describes the image you would like; consult the Dockerfile documentation for details on how to do this. Note that run-time functionality such as ENTRYPOINT is not supported.

We will use the following simple Dockerfile:

# ch-test-scope: standard
FROM almalinux:8

RUN dnf install -y --setopt=install_weak_deps=false openssh-clients \
 && dnf clean all

COPY . hello

RUN touch /usr/bin/ch-ssh

This creates a minimal AlmaLinux 8 image with ssh installed. We will encounter more complex Dockerfiles later in this tutorial.

2.3.2. Build Charliecloud image

The three arguments here are the ch-image subcommand build, the option to enable unprivileged build workarounds --force, and the context directory ., which in this case is the current directory.

$ ch-image build --force .
inferred image name: hello
2 FROM almalinux:8
will use --force: rhel8: CentOS/RHEL 8+
[...]
7 COPY ['.'] -> 'hello'
9 RUN ['/bin/sh', '-c', 'touch /usr/bin/ch-ssh']
--force: init OK & modified 1 RUN instructions
grown in 4 instructions: hello

Note

ch-image prints information about the build process while in progress. While not shown above, it uses yellow for this chatter, while build command output remains in the default color (e.g., white).

This image and the almalinux:8 base image used to build it are now visible in Charliecloud’s builder storage:

$ ch-image list
almalinux:8
hello

2.3.3. Sharing images

Charliecloud images in internal storage can be converted to multiple formats via ch-convert, e.g. SquashFS (if SquashFUSE is installed):

$ ch-convert hello /var/tmp/hello.sqfs
input:   ch-image  hello
output:  squash    /var/tmp/hello.sqfs
packing ...
[...]
done
$ ls -l /var/tmp/hello.sqfs
-rw-rw-r-- 1 heasterday heasterday 83288064 Nov 15 12:07 /var/tmp/hello.sqfs

Tarball:

$ ch-convert hello /var/tmp/hello.tar.gz
input:   ch-image  hello
output:  tar       /var/tmp/hello.tar.gz
exporting ...
done
$ ls -l /var/tmp/hello.tar.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 heasterday heasterday 86122450 Nov 15 15:23 /var/tmp/hello.tar.gz

Directory:

$ ch-convert hello /var/tmp/hello
input:   ch-image  hello
output:  dir       /var/tmp/hello
exporting ...
done
$ ls /var/tmp/hello
bin  dev  hello  lib    lost+found  mnt  proc  run   srv  tmp  var
ch   etc  home   lib64  media       opt  root  sbin  sys  usr

ch-convert can also convert images between any two supported formats, e.g. SquashFS to tarball:

$ ch-convert hello.sqfs hello.tar.gz
input:   tar       hello.tar.gz
output:  squash    hello.sqfs
unpacking ...
[...]
done

Tarball to directory:

$ ch-convert /var/tmp/hello.tar.gz /var/tmp/hello
input:   tar       /var/tmp/hello.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/hello
unpacking ...
[...]
done

Charliecloud also supports “pushing” images from its internal storage to a registry using ch-image push and “pulling” images in the reverse direction with ch-image pull.

2.3.4. Distributing images

Thus far, the workflow has taken place on the build system. The next step is to copy the built image to the run system. This can use any appropriate method for moving files: scp, rsync, something integrated with the scheduler, etc. (The purpose of the tarball image format is to put images in a single file that’s easy to move around with traditional UNIX commands.)

If the build and run systems are the same, then no copy is needed. This is a typical use case for development and testing.

If you are using the SquashFS workflow, copy the .sqfs file you created above to the run system; otherwise, copy the .tar.gz, then unpack it on the run system using ch-convert as above.

Warning

Generally, you should avoid directory-format images on shared filesystems such as NFS and Lustre, in favor of local storage such as tmpfs and local hard disks. This will yield better performance for you and anyone else on the shared filesystem. In contrast, SquashFS images should work fine on shared filesystems.

2.3.5. Running images

We are now ready to run programs inside a Charliecloud container. This is done with the ch-run command:

$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- echo hello
hello

or:

$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello -- echo hello
hello

Note

You can run perfectly well out of /tmp, but because it is bind-mounted automatically, the image root will then appear in multiple locations in the container’s filesystem tree. This can cause confusion for both users and programs.

Symbolic links in /proc tell us the current namespaces, which are identified by long ID numbers:

$ ls -l /proc/self/ns
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 11:24 ipc -> ipc:[4026531839]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 11:24 mnt -> mnt:[4026531840]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 11:24 net -> net:[4026531969]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 11:24 pid -> pid:[4026531836]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 11:24 user -> user:[4026531837]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 11:24 uts -> uts:[4026531838]
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello -- ls -l /proc/self/ns
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 17:34 ipc -> ipc:[4026531839]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 17:34 mnt -> mnt:[4026532257]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 17:34 net -> net:[4026531969]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 17:34 pid -> pid:[4026531836]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 17:34 user -> user:[4026532256]
lrwxrwxrwx 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 17:34 uts -> uts:[4026531838]

Notice that the container has different mount (mnt) and user (user) namespaces, but the rest of the namespaces are shared with the host. This highlights Charliecloud’s focus on functionality (make your UDSS run), rather than isolation (protect the host from your UDSS).

Normally, each invocation of ch-run creates a new container, so if you have multiple simultaneous invocations, they will not share containers. In some cases this can cause problems with MPI programs. However, there is an option --join that can solve them; see the FAQ for details.

Note

The -- in the ch-run command line is a standard argument that separates options from non-option arguments. Without it, ch-run would try (and fail) to interpret ls’s -l argument.

These IDs are available both in the symlink target as well as its inode number:

$ stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026531837
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello -- stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256

You can also run interactive commands, such as a shell:

$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- /bin/bash
> stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256
> exit

Be aware that wildcards in the ch-run command are interpreted by the host, not the container, unless protected. One workaround is to use a sub-shell. For example:

$ ls /usr/bin/oldfind
ls: cannot access '/usr/bin/oldfind': No such file or directory
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- ls /usr/bin/oldfind
/usr/bin/oldfind
$ ls /usr/bin/oldf*
ls: cannot access '/usr/bin/oldf*': No such file or directory
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- ls /usr/bin/oldf*
ls: cannot access /usr/bin/oldf*: No such file or directory
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- sh -c 'ls /usr/bin/oldf*'
/usr/bin/oldfind

You have now successfully run commands within a single-node Charliecloud container. Next, we explore how Charliecloud accesses host resources.

2.4. Interacting with the host

Charliecloud is not an isolation layer, so containers have full access to host resources, with a few quirks. This section demonstrates how this works.

2.4.1. Filesystems

Charliecloud makes host directories available inside the container using bind mounts, which is somewhat like a hard link in that it causes a file or directory to appear in multiple places in the filesystem tree, but it is a property of the running kernel rather than the filesystem.

Several host directories are always bind-mounted into the container. These include system directories such as /dev, /proc, and /sys; /tmp; Charliecloud’s ch-ssh command in /usr/bin; and the invoking user’s home directory (for dotfiles), unless --no-home is specified.

Charliecloud uses recursive bind mounts, so for example if the host has a variety of sub-filesystems under /sys, as Ubuntu does, these will be available in the container as well.

In addition to the default bind mounts, arbitrary user-specified directories can be added using the --bind or -b switch. By default, mounts use the same path as provided from the host. In the case of directory images, which are writeable, the target mount directory will be automatically created before the container is started:

$ mkdir /var/tmp/foo0
$ echo hello > /var/tmp/foo0/bar
$ mkdir /var/tmp/foo1
$ echo world > /var/tmp/foo1/bar
$ ch-run -b /var/tmp/foo0 -b /var/tmp/foo1 /var/tmp/hello -- bash
> cat /var/tmp/foo0/bar
hello
> cat /var/tmp/foo1/bar
world

However, as SquashFS filesystems are read-only, in this case you must provide a destination that already exists, like those created under /mnt:

$ mkdir /var/tmp/foo0
$ echo hello > /var/tmp/foo0/bar
$ mkdir /var/tmp/foo1
$ echo world > /var/tmp/foo1/bar
$ ch-run -b /var/tmp/foo0 -b /var/tmp/foo1 /var/tmp/hello -- bash
ch-run[1184427]: error: can't mkdir: /var/tmp/hello/var/tmp/foo0: Read-only file system (ch_misc.c:142 30)
$ ch-run -b /var/tmp/foo0:/mnt/0 -b /var/tmp/foo1:/mnt/1 /var/tmp/hello -- bash
> ls /mnt
0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
> cat /mnt/0/bar
hello
> cat /mnt/1/bar
world

2.4.2. Network

Charliecloud containers share the host’s network namespace, so most network things should be the same.

However, SSH is not aware of Charliecloud containers. If you SSH to a node where Charliecloud is installed, you will get a shell on the host, not in a container, even if ssh was initiated from a container:

$ stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026531837
$ ssh localhost stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026531837
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- /bin/bash
> stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256
> ssh localhost stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026531837

There are several ways to SSH to a remote node and run commands inside a container. The simplest is to manually invoke ch-run in the ssh command:

$ ssh localhost ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256

Note

Recall that each ch-run invocation creates a new container. That is, the ssh command above has not entered an existing user namespace ’2256; rather, it has re-used the namespace ID ’2256.

Another is to use the ch-ssh wrapper program, which adds ch-run to the ssh command implicitly. It takes the ch-run arguments from the environment variable CH_RUN_ARGS, making it mostly a drop-in replacement for ssh. For example:

$ export CH_RUN_ARGS="/var/tmp/hello.sqfs --"
$ ch-ssh localhost stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256
$ ch-ssh -t localhost /bin/bash
> stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256

ch-ssh is available inside containers as well (in /usr/bin via bind-mount):

$ export CH_RUN_ARGS="/var/tmp/hello.sqfs --"
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- /bin/bash
> stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532256
> ch-ssh localhost stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026532258

This also demonstrates that ch-run does not alter most environment variables.

Warning

1. CH_RUN_ARGS is interpreted very simply; the sole delimiter is spaces. It is not shell syntax. In particular, quotes and backslashes are not interpreted.

2. Argument -t is required for SSH to allocate a pseudo-TTY and thus convince your shell to be interactive. In the case of Bash, otherwise you’ll get a shell that accepts commands but doesn’t print prompts, among other other issues. (Issue #2.)

A third may be to edit one’s shell initialization scripts to check the command line and exec(1) ch-run if appropriate. This is brittle but avoids wrapping ssh or altering its command line.

2.4.3. User and group IDs

Unlike Docker and some other container systems, Charliecloud tries to make the container’s users and groups look the same as the host’s. (This is accomplished by bind-mounting a custom /etc/passwd and /etc/group into the container.) For example:

$ id -u
901
$ whoami
reidpr
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- bash
> id -u
901
> whoami
reidpr

More specifically, the user namespace, when created without privileges as Charliecloud does, lets you map any container UID to your host UID. ch-run implements this with the --uid switch. So, for example, you can tell Charliecloud you want to be root, and it will tell you that you’re root:

$ ch-run --uid 0 /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- bash
> id -u
0
> whoami
root

But, this doesn’t get you anything useful, because the container UID is mapped back to your UID on the host before permission checks are applied:

> dd if=/dev/mem of=/tmp/pwned
dd: failed to open '/dev/mem': Permission denied

This mapping also affects how users are displayed. For example, if a file is owned by you, your host UID will be mapped to your container UID, which is then looked up in /etc/passwd to determine the display name. In typical usage without --uid, this mapping is a no-op, so everything looks normal:

$ ls -nd ~
drwxr-xr-x 87 901 901 4096 Sep 28 12:12 /home/reidpr
$ ls -ld ~
drwxr-xr-x 87 reidpr reidpr 4096 Sep 28 12:12 /home/reidpr
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- bash
> ls -nd ~
drwxr-xr-x 87 901 901 4096 Sep 28 18:12 /home/reidpr
> ls -ld ~
drwxr-xr-x 87 reidpr reidpr 4096 Sep 28 18:12 /home/reidpr

But if --uid is provided, things can seem odd. For example:

$ ch-run --uid 0 /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- bash
> ls -nd /home/reidpr
drwxr-xr-x 87 0 901 4096 Sep 28 18:12 /home/reidpr
> ls -ld /home/reidpr
drwxr-xr-x 87 root reidpr 4096 Sep 28 18:12 /home/reidpr

This UID mapping can contain only one pair: an arbitrary container UID to your effective UID on the host. Thus, all other users are unmapped, and they show up as nobody:

$ ls -n /tmp/foo
-rw-rw---- 1 902 902 0 Sep 28 15:40 /tmp/foo
$ ls -l /tmp/foo
-rw-rw---- 1 sig sig 0 Sep 28 15:40 /tmp/foo
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- bash
> ls -n /tmp/foo
-rw-rw---- 1 65534 65534 843 Sep 28 21:40 /tmp/foo
> ls -l /tmp/foo
-rw-rw---- 1 nobody nogroup 843 Sep 28 21:40 /tmp/foo

User namespaces have a similar mapping for GIDs, with the same limitation — exactly one arbitrary container GID maps to your effective primary GID. This can lead to some strange-looking results, because only one of your GIDs can be mapped in any given container. All the rest become nogroup:

$ id
uid=901(reidpr) gid=901(reidpr) groups=901(reidpr),903(nerds),904(losers)
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- id
uid=901(reidpr) gid=901(reidpr) groups=901(reidpr),65534(nogroup)
$ ch-run --gid 903 /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- id
uid=901(reidpr) gid=903(nerds) groups=903(nerds),65534(nogroup)

However, this doesn’t affect access. The container process retains the same GIDs from the host perspective, and as always, the host IDs are what control access:

$ ls -l /tmp/primary /tmp/supplemental
-rw-rw---- 1 sig reidpr 0 Sep 28 15:47 /tmp/primary
-rw-rw---- 1 sig nerds  0 Sep 28 15:48 /tmp/supplemental
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- bash
> cat /tmp/primary > /dev/null
> cat /tmp/supplemental > /dev/null

One area where functionality is reduced is that chgrp(1) becomes useless. Using an unmapped group or nogroup fails, and using a mapped group is a no-op because it’s mapped back to the host GID:

$ ls -l /tmp/bar
rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 16:12 /tmp/bar
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- chgrp nerds /tmp/bar
chgrp: changing group of '/tmp/bar': Invalid argument
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- chgrp nogroup /tmp/bar
chgrp: changing group of '/tmp/bar': Invalid argument
$ ch-run --gid 903 /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- chgrp nerds /tmp/bar
$ ls -l /tmp/bar
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 0 Sep 28 16:12 /tmp/bar

Workarounds include chgrp(1) on the host or fastidious use of setgid directories:

$ mkdir /tmp/baz
$ chgrp nerds /tmp/baz
$ chmod 2770 /tmp/baz
$ ls -ld /tmp/baz
drwxrws--- 2 reidpr nerds 40 Sep 28 16:19 /tmp/baz
$ ch-run /var/tmp/hello.sqfs -- touch /tmp/baz/foo
$ ls -l /tmp/baz/foo
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr nerds 0 Sep 28 16:21 /tmp/baz/foo

This concludes our discussion of how a Charliecloud container interacts with its host and principal Charliecloud quirks. We next move on to installing software.

2.5. Installing your own software

This section covers four situations for making software available inside a Charliecloud container:

1. Third-party software installed into the image using a package manager.

2. Third-party software compiled from source into the image.

3. Your software installed into the image.

4. Your software stored on the host but compiled in the container.

Many of Docker’s Best practices for writing Dockerfiles apply to Charliecloud images as well, so you should be familiar with that document.

Note

Maybe you don’t have to install the software at all. Is there already a trustworthy image on Docker Hub you can use as a base?

2.5.1. Third-party software via package manager

This approach is the simplest and fastest way to install stuff in your image. The examples/hello Dockerfile also seen above does this to install the package openssh-client:

RUN dnf install -y --setopt=install_weak_deps=false openssh-clients \
 && dnf clean all

COPY . hello

You can use distribution package managers such as dnf, as demonstrated above, or others, such as pip for Python packages.

Be aware that the software will be downloaded anew each time you build the image, unless you add an HTTP cache, which is out of scope of this tutorial.

2.5.2. Third-party software compiled from source

Under this method, one uses RUN commands to fetch the desired software using curl or wget, compile it, and install. Our example does this with two chained Dockerfiles. First, we build a basic CentOS image (examples/Dockerfile.almalinux8):

FROM almalinux:8

# This image has two purposes: (1) demonstrate we can build a AlmaLinux 8 image
# and (2) provide a build environment for Charliecloud EPEL 8 RPMs.
#
# Quirks:
#
#   1. Install the dnf ovl plugin to work around RPMDB corruption when
#      building images with Docker and the OverlayFS storage driver.
#
#   2. Enable PowerTools repo, because some packages in EPEL depend on it.
#
#   3. Install packages needed to build el8 rpms.
#
#   4. Issue #1103: Install libarchive to resolve cmake bug
#
RUN dnf install -y --setopt=install_weak_deps=false \
                epel-release \
                'dnf-command(config-manager)' \
 && dnf config-manager --enable powertools \
 && dnf install -y --setopt=install_weak_deps=false \
                dnf-plugin-ovl \
                autoconf \
                automake \
                gcc \
                git \
                libarchive \
                make \
                python3 \
                python3-devel \
                python3-lark-parser \
                python3-requests \
                python3-sphinx \
                python3-sphinx_rtd_theme \
                rpm-build \
                rpmlint \
                rsync \
                squashfs-tools \
                squashfuse \
                wget \
 && dnf clean all

# Need wheel to install bundled Lark, and the RPM version doesn't work.
RUN pip3 install wheel

# AlmaLinux's linker doesn't search these paths by default; add them because we
# will install stuff later into /usr/local.
RUN echo "/usr/local/lib" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usrlocal.conf \
 && echo "/usr/local/lib64" >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/usrlocal.conf \
 && ldconfig

Then, we add OpenMPI with examples/Dockerfile.openmpi. This is a complex Dockerfile that compiles several dependencies in addition to OpenMPI. For the purposes of this tutorial, you can skip most of it, but we felt it would be useful to show a real example.

FROM almalinux8

# A key goal of this Dockerfile is to demonstrate best practices for building
# OpenMPI for use inside a container.
#
# This OpenMPI aspires to work close to optimally on clusters with any of the
# following interconnects:
#
#    - Ethernet (TCP/IP)
#    - InfiniBand (IB)
#    - Omni-Path (OPA)
#    - RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) interconnects
#
# with no environment variables, command line arguments, or additional
# configuration files. Thus, we try to implement decisions at build time.
#
# This is a work in progress, and we're very interested in feedback.
#
# OpenMPI has numerous ways to communicate messages [1]. The ones relevant to
# this build and the interconnects they support are:
#
#   Module        Eth   IB    OPA   RoCE    note  decision
#   ------------  ----  ----  ----  ----    ----  --------
#
#   ob1 : tcp      Y*    X     X     X      a     include
#   ob1 : openib   N     Y     Y     Y      b,c   exclude
#   cm  : psm2     N     N     Y*    N            include
#       : ucx      Y?    Y*    N     Y?     b,d   include
#
#   Y : supported
#   Y*: best choice for that interconnect
#   X : supported but sub-optimal
#
#   a : No RDMA, so performance will suffer.
#   b : Uses libibverbs.
#   c : Will be removed in OpenMPI 5.
#   d : Uses Mellanox libraries if available in preference to libibverbs.
#
# You can check what's available with:
#
#   $ ch-run /var/tmp/openmpi -- ompi_info | egrep '(btl|mtl|pml)'
#
# The other build decisions are:
#
#   1. PMI/PMIx: Include these so that we can use srun or any other PMI[x]
#      provider, with no matching OpenMPI needed on the host.
#
#   2. --disable-pty-support to avoid "pipe function call failed when
#      setting up I/O forwarding subsystem".
#
#   3. --enable-mca-no-build=plm-slurm to support launching processes using
#      the host's srun (i.e., the container OpenMPI needs to talk to the host
#      Slurm's PMI) but prevent OpenMPI from invoking srun itself from within
#      the container, where srun is not installed (the error messages from
#      this are inscrutable).
#
# [1]: https://github.com/open-mpi/ompi/blob/master/README

# OS packages needed to build this stuff.
#
# Note that libpsm2 is x86-64 only so we skip if missing
RUN dnf install -y --setopt=install_weak_deps=false \
                automake \
                file \
                flex \
                gcc \
                gcc-c++ \
                gcc-gfortran \
                git \
                ibacm \
                libevent-devel \
                libtool \
                libibumad \
                libibumad-devel \
                libibverbs \
                libibverbs-devel \
                libibverbs-utils \
                librdmacm \
                librdmacm-devel \
                rdma-core \
                make \
                numactl-devel \
                wget \
 && dnf install -y --setopt=install_weak_deps=false --skip-broken \
                libpsm2 \
                libpsm2-devel \
 && dnf clean all

WORKDIR /usr/local/src

# UCX. There is a package but we want control over build options, specifically
# multithreaded support.
ARG UCX_VERSION=1.11.2
RUN git clone --branch v${UCX_VERSION} --depth 1 \
              https://github.com/openucx/ucx.git \
 && cd ucx \
 && ./autogen.sh \
 && ./contrib/configure-release-mt --prefix=/usr/local \
 && make -j$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN) install \
 && rm -Rf ../ucx*

# PMI2.
#
# There isn't a package available with the Slurm PMI2 libraries we need, so
# build them from Slurm's release.
ARG SLURM_VERSION=19-05-3-2
RUN wget https://github.com/SchedMD/slurm/archive/slurm-${SLURM_VERSION}.tar.gz \
 && tar -xf slurm-${SLURM_VERSION}.tar.gz \
 && cd slurm-slurm-${SLURM_VERSION} \
 && ./configure --prefix=/usr/local \
 && cd contribs/pmi2 \
 && make -j$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN) install \
 && rm -Rf ../../../slurm*

# OpenMPI.
#
# Patch OpenMPI to disable UCX plugin on systems with Intel or Cray HSNs. UCX
# has inferior performance than PSM2/uGNI but higher priority.
ARG MPI_URL=https://www.open-mpi.org/software/ompi/v3.1/downloads
ARG MPI_VERSION=3.1.6
RUN wget -nv ${MPI_URL}/openmpi-${MPI_VERSION}.tar.gz \
 && tar xf openmpi-${MPI_VERSION}.tar.gz
COPY dont-init-ucx-on-intel-cray.patch ./openmpi-${MPI_VERSION}
RUN cd openmpi-${MPI_VERSION} \
 && patch -p1 dont-init-ucx-on-intel-cray.patch \
 && CFLAGS=-O3 \
    CXXFLAGS=-O3 \
    ./configure --prefix=/usr/local \
                --sysconfdir=/mnt/0 \
                --with-slurm \
                --with-pmi=/usr/local \
                --with-pmix \
                --with-ucx \
                --disable-pty-support \
                --enable-mca-no-build=btl-openib,plm-slurm \
 && make -j$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN) install \
 && rm -Rf ../openmpi-${MPI_VERSION}*
RUN ldconfig

# OpenMPI expects this program to exist, even if it's not used. Default is
# "ssh : rsh", but that's not installed.
RUN echo 'plm_rsh_agent = false' >> /mnt/0/openmpi-mca-params.conf

So what is going on here?

1. Use the latest AlmaLinux 8 as the base image.

2. Install a basic build system using the OS package manager.

3. For a few dependencies and then OpenMPI itself:

   1. Download and untar. Note the use of variables to make adjusting the URL and versions easier, as well as the explanation of why we’re not using dnf, given that several of these packages are included in CentOS.

   2. Build and install OpenMPI. Note the getconf trick to guess at an appropriate parallel build.

4. Clean up, in order to reduce the size of layers as well as the resulting Charliecloud image (rm -Rf).

2.5.3. Your software stored in the image

This method covers software provided by you that is included in the image. This is recommended when your software is relatively stable or is not easily available to users of your image, for example a library rather than simulation code under active development.

The general approach is the same as installing third-party software from source, but you use the COPY instruction to transfer files from the host filesystem (rather than the network via HTTP) to the image. For example, examples/mpihello/Dockerfile.openmpi uses this approach:

# ch-test-scope: full
FROM openmpi

# This example
COPY . /hello
WORKDIR /hello
RUN make clean && make

These Dockerfile instructions:

1. Copy the host directory examples/mpihello to the image at path /hello. The host path is relative to the context directory, which is tarred up and sent to the Docker daemon. Docker builds have no access to the host filesystem outside the context directory.

   (Unlike the HPC custom, Docker comes from a world without network filesystems. This tar-based approach lets the Docker daemon run on a different node from the client without needing any shared filesystems.)

   The convention for Charliecloud tests and examples is that the context is the directory containing the Dockerfile in question, and a common pattern, used here, is to copy in the entire context.

2. cd to /hello.

3. Compile our example. We include make clean to remove any leftover build files, since they would be inappropriate inside the container.

Once the image is built, we can see the results. (Install the image into /var/tmp as outlined above, if you haven’t already.)

$ ch-run /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi.sqfs -- ls -lh /hello
total 32K
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr  908 Oct  4 15:52 Dockerfile
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr  157 Aug  5 22:37 Makefile
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 1.2K Aug  5 22:37 README
-rwxr-x--- 1 reidpr reidpr 9.5K Oct  4 15:58 hello
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 1.4K Aug  5 22:37 hello.c
-rwxrwx--- 1 reidpr reidpr  441 Aug  5 22:37 test.sh

We will revisit this image later.

2.5.4. Your software stored on the host

This method leaves your software on the host but compiles it in the image. This is recommended when your software is volatile or each image user needs a different version, for example a simulation code under active development.

The general approach is to bind-mount the appropriate directory and then run the build inside the container. We can re-use the mpihello image to demonstrate this.

$ cd examples/mpihello
$ ls -l
total 20
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr  908 Oct  4 09:52 Dockerfile
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 1431 Aug  5 16:37 hello.c
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr  157 Aug  5 16:37 Makefile
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 1172 Aug  5 16:37 README
$ ch-run -b .:/mnt/0 --cd /mnt/0 /var/tmp/mpihello.sqfs -- make
mpicc -std=gnu11 -Wall hello.c -o hello
$ ls -l
total 32
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr  908 Oct  4 09:52 Dockerfile
-rwxrwx--- 1 reidpr reidpr 9632 Oct  4 10:43 hello
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 1431 Aug  5 16:37 hello.c
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr  157 Aug  5 16:37 Makefile
-rw-rw---- 1 reidpr reidpr 1172 Aug  5 16:37 README

A common use case is to leave a container shell open in one terminal for building, and then run using a separate container invoked from a different terminal.

2.6. Your first single-node, multi-process jobs

This is an important use case even for large-scale codes, when testing and development happens at small scale but need to use an environment comparable to large-scale runs.

This tutorial covers three approaches:

1. Processes are coordinated by the host, i.e., one process per container.

2. Processes are coordinated by the container, i.e., one container with multiple processes, using configuration files from the container.

3. Processes are coordinated by the container using configuration files from the host.

In order to test approach 1, you must install OpenMPI 2.1.2 on the host. In our experience, we have had success compiling from source with the same options as in the Dockerfile, but there is probably more nuance to the match than we’ve discovered.

2.6.1. Processes coordinated by host

This approach does the forking and process coordination on the host. Each process is spawned in its own container, and because Charliecloud introduces minimal isolation, they can communicate as if they were running directly on the host.

For example, using Slurm srun and the mpihello example above:

$ stat -L --format='%i' /proc/self/ns/user
4026531837
$ ch-run /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi.sqfs -- mpirun --version
mpirun (Open MPI) 2.1.5
$ srun -n4 ch-run /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi.sqfs -- /hello/hello
0: init ok cn001, 4 ranks, userns 4026554650
1: init ok cn001, 4 ranks, userns 4026554652
3: init ok cn002, 4 ranks, userns 4026554652
2: init ok cn002, 4 ranks, userns 4026554650
0: send/receive ok
0: finalize ok

We recommend this approach because it lets you take advantage of difficult things already done by your site admins, such as configuring Slurm.

If you don’t have Slurm, you can use mpirun -np 4 instead of srun -n4. However, this requires that the host have a compatible version of OpenMPI installed on the host. Which versions are compatible seems to be a moving target, but having the same versions inside and outside the container usually works.

2.6.2. Processes coordinated by container

This approach starts a single container process, which then forks and coordinates the parallel work. The advantage is that this approach is completely independent of the host for dependency configuration and installation; the disadvantage is that it cannot take advantage of host things such as Slurm configuration.

For example:

$ ch-run /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi.sqfs -- mpirun -np 4 /hello/hello
0: init ok cn001, 4 ranks, userns 4026532256
1: init ok cn001, 4 ranks, userns 4026532256
2: init ok cn001, 4 ranks, userns 4026532256
3: init ok cn001, 4 ranks, userns 4026532256
0: send/receive ok
0: finalize ok

Note that in this case, we use mpirun rather than srun because the Slurm client programs are not installed inside the container, and we don’t want the host’s Slurm coordinating processes anyway.

2.7. Your first multi-node jobs

This section assumes that you are using a Slurm cluster and some type of node-local storage. A tmpfs will suffice, and we use /var/tmp for this tutorial. (Using /tmp often works but can cause confusion because it’s shared by the container and host, yielding cycles in the directory tree.)

We cover three cases:

1. The MPI hello world example above, run interactively, with the host coordinating.

2. Same, non-interactive.

3. An Apache Spark example, run interactively.

4. Same, non-interactive.

We think that container-coordinated MPI jobs will also work, but we haven’t worked out how to do this yet. (See issue #5.)

Note

The image directory is mounted read-only by default so it can be shared by multiple Charliecloud containers in the same or different jobs. It can be mounted read-write with ch-run -w if you are not using SquashFS.

Warning

The image can reside on most filesystems, but be aware of metadata impact. A non-trivial Charliecloud job may overwhelm a network filesystem, earning you the ire of your sysadmins and colleagues.

2.7.1. Interactive MPI hello world

First, obtain an interactive allocation of nodes. This tutorial assumes an allocation of 4 nodes (but any number should work) and an interactive shell on one of those nodes. For example:

$ salloc -N4

The next step is to distribute the image to the compute nodes. For SquashFS images, this is handled by the internal mounting process; for tarballs, we run one instance of ch-convert on each node using srun:

$ srun ch-convert mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
input:   tar       mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
unpacking ...
input:   tar       mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
unpacking ...
input:   tar       mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
unpacking ...
input:   tar       mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
unpacking ...
done
done
done
done

We can now activate the image and run our program:

$ srun --cpus-per-task=1 ch-run /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi.sqfs -- /hello/hello
2: init ok cn001, 64 ranks, userns 4026532567
4: init ok cn001, 64 ranks, userns 4026532571
8: init ok cn001, 64 ranks, userns 4026532579
[...]
45: init ok cn003, 64 ranks, userns 4026532589
17: init ok cn002, 64 ranks, userns 4026532565
55: init ok cn004, 64 ranks, userns 4026532577
0: send/receive ok
0: finalize ok

Success!

2.7.2. Non-interactive MPI hello world

Production jobs are normally run non-interactively, via submission of a job script that runs when resources are available, placing output into a file.

The MPI hello world example includes such a script, examples/mpi/mpihello/slurm.sh:

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --time=0:10:00

# Arguments: Path to tarball, path to image parent directory.

set -e

tar=$1
imgdir=$2
img=${2}/$(basename "${tar%.tar.gz}")

if [[ -z $tar ]]; then
    echo 'no tarball specified' 1>&2
    exit 1
fi
printf 'tarball:   %s\n' "$tar"

if [[ -z $imgdir ]]; then
    echo 'no image directory specified' 1>&2
    exit 1
fi
printf 'image:     %s\n' "$img"

# Make Charliecloud available (varies by site).
module purge
module load friendly-testing
module load charliecloud

# Unpack image.
srun ch-convert -o dir "$tar" "$imgdir"

# MPI version in container.
printf 'container: '
ch-run "$img" -- mpirun --version | grep -E '^mpirun'

# Run the app.
srun --cpus-per-task=1 ch-run "$img" -- /hello/hello

Note that this script both unpacks the image and runs it.

Submit it with something like:

$ sbatch -N4 slurm.sh ~/mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz /var/tmp
207745

When the job is complete, look at the output:

$ cat slurm-207745.out
tarball:   /home/reidpr/mpihello-openmpi.tar.gz
image:     /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
creating new image /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
creating new image /var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi
[...]
/var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi unpacked ok
/var/tmp/mpihello-openmpi unpacked ok
container: mpirun (Open MPI) 2.1.5
0: init ok cn001.localdomain, 144 ranks, userns 4026554766
37: init ok cn002.localdomain, 144 ranks, userns 4026554800
[...]
96: init ok cn003.localdomain, 144 ranks, userns 4026554803
86: init ok cn003.localdomain, 144 ranks, userns 4026554793
0: send/receive ok
0: finalize ok

Success!

2.7.3. Interactive Apache Spark

This example is in examples/spark. Build a tarball or SquashFS and upload it to your cluster.

Once you have an interactive job, prepare the image. Recall that for the SquashFS workflow this is handled by the internal mounting process.

tarball:

$ srun ch-convert spark.tar.gz /var/tmp/spark
input:   tar       spark.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/spark
unpacking ...
input:   tar       spark.tar.gz
output:  dir       /var/tmp/spark
unpacking ...
done
done

We need to first create a basic configuration for Spark, as the defaults in the Dockerfile are insufficient. (For real jobs, you’ll want to also configure performance parameters such as memory use; see the documentation.) First:

$ mkdir -p ~/sparkconf
$ chmod 700 ~/sparkconf

We’ll want to use the cluster’s high-speed network. For this example, we’ll find the Spark master’s IP manually:

$ ip -o -f inet addr show | cut -d/ -f1
1: lo    inet 127.0.0.1
2: eth0  inet 192.168.8.3
8: eth1  inet 10.8.8.3

Your site support can tell you which to use. In this case, we’ll use 10.8.8.3.

Create some configuration files. Replace [MYSECRET] with a string only you know. Edit to match your system; in particular, use local disks instead of /tmp if you have them:

$ cat > ~/sparkconf/spark-env.sh
SPARK_LOCAL_DIRS=/tmp/spark
SPARK_LOG_DIR=/tmp/spark/log
SPARK_WORKER_DIR=/tmp/spark
SPARK_LOCAL_IP=127.0.0.1
SPARK_MASTER_HOST=10.8.8.3
$ cat > ~/sparkconf/spark-defaults.conf
spark.authenticate true
spark.authenticate.secret [MYSECRET]

We can now start the Spark master:

$ ch-run -b ~/sparkconf /var/tmp/spark.sqfs -- /spark/sbin/start-master.sh

Look at the log in /tmp/spark/log to see that the master started correctly:

$ tail -7 /tmp/spark/log/*master*.out
17/02/24 22:37:21 INFO Master: Starting Spark master at spark://10.8.8.3:7077
17/02/24 22:37:21 INFO Master: Running Spark version 2.0.2
17/02/24 22:37:22 INFO Utils: Successfully started service 'MasterUI' on port 8080.
17/02/24 22:37:22 INFO MasterWebUI: Bound MasterWebUI to 127.0.0.1, and started at http://127.0.0.1:8080
17/02/24 22:37:22 INFO Utils: Successfully started service on port 6066.
17/02/24 22:37:22 INFO StandaloneRestServer: Started REST server for submitting applications on port 6066
17/02/24 22:37:22 INFO Master: I have been elected leader! New state: ALIVE

If you can run a web browser on the node, browse to http://localhost:8080 for the Spark master web interface. Because this capability varies, the tutorial does not depend on it, but it can be informative. Refresh after each key step below.

The Spark workers need to know how to reach the master. This is via a URL; you can get it from the log excerpt above, or consult the web interface. For example:

$ MASTER_URL=spark://10.8.8.3:7077

Next, start one worker on each compute node.

In this tutorial, we start the workers using srun in a way that prevents any subsequent srun invocations from running until the Spark workers exit. For our purposes here, that’s OK, but it’s a big limitation for some jobs. (See issue #230.)

Alternatives include pdsh, which is the approach we use for the Spark tests (examples/other/spark/test.bats), or a simple for loop of ssh calls. Both of these are also quite clunky and do not scale well.

$ srun sh -c "   ch-run -b ~/sparkconf /var/tmp/spark.sqfs -- \
                        spark/sbin/start-slave.sh $MASTER_URL \
              && sleep infinity" &

One of the advantages of Spark is that it’s resilient: if a worker becomes unavailable, the computation simply proceeds without it. However, this can mask issues as well. For example, this example will run perfectly fine with just one worker, or all four workers on the same node, which aren’t what we want.

Check the master log to see that the right number of workers registered:

$  fgrep worker /tmp/spark/log/*master*.out
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO Master: Registering worker 127.0.0.1:39890 with 16 cores, 187.8 GB RAM
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO Master: Registering worker 127.0.0.1:44735 with 16 cores, 187.8 GB RAM
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO Master: Registering worker 127.0.0.1:22445 with 16 cores, 187.8 GB RAM
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO Master: Registering worker 127.0.0.1:29473 with 16 cores, 187.8 GB RAM

Despite the workers calling themselves 127.0.0.1, they really are running across the allocation. (The confusion happens because of our $SPARK_LOCAL_IP setting above.) This can be verified by examining logs on each compute node. For example (note single quotes):

$ ssh 10.8.8.4 -- tail -3 '/tmp/spark/log/*worker*.out'
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO Worker: Connecting to master 10.8.8.3:7077...
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO TransportClientFactory: Successfully created connection to /10.8.8.3:7077 after 263 ms (216 ms spent in bootstraps)
17/02/24 22:52:24 INFO Worker: Successfully registered with master spark://10.8.8.3:7077

We can now start an interactive shell to do some Spark computing:

$ ch-run -b ~/sparkconf /var/tmp/spark.sqfs -- /spark/bin/pyspark --master $MASTER_URL

Let’s use this shell to estimate 𝜋 (this is adapted from one of the Spark examples):

>>> import operator
>>> import random
>>>
>>> def sample(p):
...    (x, y) = (random.random(), random.random())
...    return 1 if x*x + y*y < 1 else 0
...
>>> SAMPLE_CT = int(2e8)
>>> ct = sc.parallelize(xrange(0, SAMPLE_CT)) \
...        .map(sample) \
...        .reduce(operator.add)
>>> 4.0*ct/SAMPLE_CT
3.14109824

(Type Control-D to exit.)

We can also submit jobs to the Spark cluster. This one runs the same example as included with the Spark source code. (The voluminous logging output is omitted.)

$ ch-run -b ~/sparkconf /var/tmp/spark.sqfs -- \
         /spark/bin/spark-submit --master $MASTER_URL \
         /spark/examples/src/main/python/pi.py 1024
[...]
Pi is roughly 3.141211
[...]

Exit your allocation. Slurm will clean up the Spark daemons.

Success! Next, we’ll run a similar job non-interactively.

2.7.4. Non-interactive Apache Spark

We’ll re-use much of the above to run the same computation non-interactively. For brevity, the Slurm script at examples/other/spark/slurm.sh is not reproduced here.

Submit it as follows. It requires three arguments: the tarball, the image directory to unpack into, and the high-speed network interface. Again, consult your site administrators for the latter.

$ sbatch -N4 slurm.sh spark.tar.gz /var/tmp ib0
Submitted batch job 86754

Output:

$ fgrep 'Pi is' slurm-86754.out
Pi is roughly 3.141393

Success! (to four significant digits)